A new low-barrier, 24/7 bridge shelter housing up to 150 homeless, now under construction on County Psychiatric Hospital land in the Midway District, is expected to open soon.
The Lucky Duck Foundation, a nonprofit whose mission is to alleviate the suffering of homelessness throughout San Diego County, is donating the use of their bridge shelter at 3851 Rosecrans St. The construction of the shelter will take about four weeks to complete, and is expected to be operational in July.
“We have recently taken several actions at the County to help cities address homelessness, from behavioral health services and standard agreements to funding new shelters, but this partnership is unprecedented because we are placing a shelter on County-owned land,” said Supervisor Nathan Fletcher. “The Lucky Duck Foundation and the City are great partners and this new collaboration will help more individuals experiencing homelessness in the Midway community leave the encampments and get into a stable environment.”
“The City’s homeless shelters are regularly and consistently at more than 90 percent occupancy,” said Mayor Todd Gloria. “This new shelter in Midway, the result of unprecedented collaboration and problem-solving between the City and the County, along with organizations like the Lucky Duck Foundation, will help us get even more people safely off the street. The shelter is an immediate solution to get folks connected to support services and on a pathway to permanent or long-term housing. This facility will get hundreds more San Diegans on that path.”
Dike Anyiwo, chair of Midway-Pacific Highway Community Planning Group, reacted to this latest development in the fight to stem homelessness.
“I think the installation of this shelter here in the Midway District is a direct response to growing community concerns over the last few years about the state of homelessness in the neighborhood, particularly the large encampment on Sports Arena Boulevard,” said Anyiwo. “I view this effort as a positive step in our collaborative regional approach to addressing the homelessness crisis in San Diego. Ultimately the solution to homelessness requires that more homes being built, and we’re doing everything we can as a community to achieve the vision of our community plan and build more homes in this neighborhood.”
Added Anyiwo: “I would like to thank Fletcher, Gloria, Supervisor Terra Lawson Remer, and my Councilmember Dr. Jen Campbell for their partnership with the Midway-Pacific Highway Community in this effort. This low-barrier shelter will provide much-needed capacity to help our neighbors across the Sports Arena and wider Midway area transition off the streets and receive the support they need.”
To prepare the new shelter site, the County performed advanced infrastructure work including removing and replacing lighting, new exterior site lighting, asphalt repairs, trenching for a new sewer connection, potable water connections, and power connections for the structure, mobile trailers for laundry, and shower and administrative offices.
The Midway District Bridge Shelter will be different from existing bridge shelters because it will offer on-site behavioral health services. It will operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. During their stay, guests will be offered services such as meals, showers, restrooms, laundry, storage for their belongings, mental health and addiction treatment, communicable disease screenings, medical care, housing navigation, and connections to self-sufficiency benefits like CalWORKS, CalFresh, and Medi-Cal.
The shelter is expected to primarily house persons experiencing homelessness in the City from nearby areas. However, all populations are mobile and all guests will be offered the same services, regardless of their last place of residency.
“This shelter will help turn Midway from a place of suffering into a place of healing, where people unhoused on our streets can get the help they need,” said Lawson-Remer, who represents the community.
“The Midway District has been inundated by the homelessness crisis – one unsafe encampment after another. By locating this shelter in a community hit hard by the homelessness crisis, the City and County are delivering urgent progress where it is needed most,” said Campbell. “As a doctor, I know this is how to really get at the root causes of homelessness – safe shelter, mental health services, and everyone from the City to the County to nonprofits – pitching in together to make a difference.”
The San Diego Housing Commission/City of San Diego has hired Alpha Project to operate the shelter and there will be established working hours, including an overnight schedule with opportunities to enter or exit that support quiet/evening hours and a safe and stable environment for shelter residents and the neighboring community.
The Lucky Duck Foundation is covering the cost to construct the new bridge shelter onsite.
